What Does 1 Samuel 10:11 Mean?
And it was, when all who had known him before saw that he prophesied among the prophets, that the people said to one another, "What is this that has come to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?"
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?THE KEY
Hebrew uses one root for both the prophets and Saul’s prophesying, making their shared prophetic act louder than the crowd’s question about whether he belongs.
THE MEANING
People who already know you can witness a new expression emerge and still have no category for it. Their question shows how strongly an old identity can shape what they expect to see.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that people who know your past have already seen the full range of what can emerge from you.
THE ROOT
נִבָּא
nibbāʾ
GROWS FROM
נבא
n-b-ʾ
To prophesy, to speak as a prophet.
The Hebrew repeats נבא in both “prophets” and “prophesied.” English can make Saul sound like an outsider entering their circle; the shared root makes the prophetic act common to him and them.
ALSO GROWS
nāvīʾ: Prophet; one who speaks as a prophet.
נָבִיא
The group’s name shares its root with Saul’s action, linking the people to the act they are known for.
nĕvūʾāh: Prophecy.
נְבוּאָה
The same root names both the act Saul performs and prophecy itself.
יֹדְעָיו
yōdĕʿāw
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, perceive by encounter.
“had known” in this verse is yōdĕʿāw. The verse sets their prior knowing of Saul beside what they see him doing now. Their familiarity is real, but it does not contain everything that can emerge in the person they know.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or perceive by encounter.
יָדַע
The root makes their prior familiarity with Saul concrete: they know him from experience, yet this moment exceeds their expectations.
daʿat: Knowledge, perception.
דַּעַת
This branch echoes the gap between what the people know of Saul and what they now witness.
שָׁאוּל
Shaʾūl
GROWS FROM
שאל
To ask, request.
Saul’s name carries the sense of “asked for,” echoing Israel’s request for a king. Here that requested king becomes the subject of the crowd’s questions as he appears among the prophets.
ALSO GROWS
shāʾal: To ask or request.
שָׁאַל
The root links Saul’s name to the earlier request for a king that shaped his public identity.
sheʾēlāh: A request or question.
שְׁאֵלָה
The crowd’s repeated questions about Saul echo the asking-root carried in his name.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic speech can emerge through people whose established identity does not predict it.
And the LORD came down in a cloud, and spoke with him, and took from the breath that was upon him and set it upon the seventy elders. And when the breath settled upon them, they prophesied and did not stop.And it will come to pass in the last days, God says, I will pour out my breath upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.THE THREAD
And the breath of the LORD will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them, and you will be turned into another man.The breath of the LORD comes upon Saul, and the same נבא root names what he does next, tying the source to the speech. “Turned into another man” makes explicit the shift the crowd is witnessing.
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